As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. An option is an information handling system (IHS). An IHS generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements may vary between different applications, IHSs may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in IHSs allow for IHSs to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, global communications, etc. In addition, IHSs may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Typically, IHSs are designed for air cooling. Conventional IHSs (e.g., servers, etc.) usually comprise one or more printed circuit boards having a plurality of electrical components mounted thereon—these printed circuit boards are housed in an enclosure having vents that allow external air to flow into the enclosure, and then out of the enclosure after being routed internally through the enclosure for cooling the IHS. In many instances, a fan is also located within the enclosure to facilitate this airflow.
In general, a lower air temperature allows each IHS component to dissipate more power and therefore operate at a level of hardware performance. Consequently, IHS facilities (e.g., data centers, etc.) have used sophisticated air conditioning systems to cool the air within it for achieving a desired performance level. As energy costs and power dissipation continue to increase, however, the total cost of cooling these facilities has also increased.
As an alternative to air cooling, immersion cooling of IHSs (e.g., in a dielectric liquid coolant, as opposed to air) has been attempted in certain applications, but has not yet enjoyed widespread commercial success. Moreover, researchers have tried to reduce the power of individual components such as the power supply and CPU, but also without success.
Particularly with respect to power supplies, the inventors hereof have recognized that submerging an off-the-shelf power supply in any dielectric liquid coolant causes the power supply's internal fan to fail over time (often within a few minutes). Conventional power supplies' fans are designed to work with ambient air, and re-designing those fans for each different type of liquid coolant is not practical. Furthermore, simply removing the fan or turning it off altogether (to rely only on the liquid cooling to keep the power supply's temperature in check) causes the power supply to operate outside of its certification parameters, if it can operate at all.
To address these, and other problems, the inventors hereof have developed a dry power supply assembly for immersion-cooled IHSs described herein.